South Florida man gets 15 years for ‘sextorting’ young girls on social media
A Fort Lauderdale man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for pressuring girls as young as 13 years old into sending sexually explicit images of themselves to him over the internet, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
Steven Gangoo also made good on a “sextortion” threat to one of his victims by sharing nude photos of the 16-year-old girl with her Instagram friends after she stopped sending him additional graphic images of herself, they said.
Gangoo, 20, who was imprisoned this past week, had pleaded guilty earlier this year to producing child pornography that he shared over the internet and in some instances posted on social media. His prosecution is among an ever-growing number of child-sexual exploitation and abuse cases brought in South Florida, U.S. authorities said.
According to court records, Gangoo began contacting a series of underage girls in 2019 and befriended them on social media, telling them they were pretty. He persuaded some of the victims to send him suggestive photos of themselves, offering them money at first to pose naked.
Once the girls complied with his demands, Gangoo extorted them by using the initial photos and videos as “leverage” to coerce them into sending additional nude images in poses of his choosing, court records show. If they refused, he would threaten to share their nude images with their family and friends.
“Gangoo admitted that he threatened to expose Victim 1 if she refused to comply with his demands,” according to a statement he made to Fort Lauderdale police officers when they searched his home in November 2019. “He also admitted to directing Victim 1 to recruit other female victims who would send him the same type of images and videos.
“Gangoo confirmed that he distributed a screenshot of his camera roll showing the saved child pornography images and videos of Victim 1 to other Instagram users. The purpose of distributing the screenshot was to show Victim 1 that he would follow through with his threats.”
His admissions were included in a factual statement filed with Gangoo’s plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the FBI case. The investigation was prompted by a victim who told her parents about Gangoo’s demands.
In another recent child-porn case, a Miami man was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to receiving thousands of images of minors being sexually abused. But the case, investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, had a twist: Adolfo Fernandez, 46, bought the child-porn photos and videos with cryptocurrency on the “Dark Web,” a global computer network of anonymous users and hidden websites.
Prosecutors said Fernandez also stored digital images depicting him having explicit sex with a minor in his living room.
This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 5:17 PM.
